1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a disk label printer that is integrated with an optical disk drive (ODD) and prints a desired image on a label surface of an optical disk inserted into the ODD.
2. Related Art
In recent years, disk drives (optical disk drives. Hereinafter, referred to as ODDs) corresponding to optical disk recording media (hereinafter, referred to as disks), such as CD-R (compact disk recordable), DVD-R (digital versatile disk recordable), CD-RW (compact disk rewritable), and DVD-RW (digital versatile disk rewritable), have been used to simply create original music albums, photo albums, and DVD albums.
Therefore, there are increasing demands for originally designing the label of the created disk.
In order to meet the demands, recently, intermediate transfer type printers have come into widespread use since they have advantages of, for example, high-quality printing, low noise, low cost, and easy maintenance. The intermediate transfer type print prints a desired image by primarily transferring ink of an ink film onto an intermediate transfer sheet using a line thermal head to form a primary transfer image and by retransferring the primary transfer image onto a label surface of a disk using a retransfer unit (see JP-A-2005-119240).
Furthermore, there has been proposed a rotary disk label printer that is provided in one standard bay of a personal computer system (see JP-A-11-339441).
The disk label printer performs printing by rotating a disk stored in a disk storage tray, similar to a known disk drive, and moving an ink jet head having an ink cartridge provided therein in the radius direction from the outer circumference of the disk to the center thereof.
Further, there has been proposed an ink jet printer that is integrated with a disk drive (see Japanese Patent No. 3341572).
However, the intermediate transfer type printer disclosed in JP-A-2005-119240 is provided separately from the disk drive and is large in size. Therefore, the intermediate transfer type printer does not meet needs of users to print desired labels on the surfaces of the disks.
The disk label printer disclosed in JP-A-11-339441 has a small size and meets needs for the users to print desired labels on the surfaces of the disks. However, the disk label printer is provided separately from the disk drive, similar to the intermediate transfer type printer disclosed in JP-A-2005-119240.
The following have been used as the disk drive: a type of disk drive in which a user opens a cover or a door provided in a case and manually loads an optical disk on a disk mounting portion; another type of disk drive in which an optical disk is loaded on a disk tray that is ejected from the case in the horizontal direction, and when the disk tray is closed, the optical disk is automatically mounted to a disk mounting portion in the case (tray type); and a slot-in type in which, when an optical disk is inserted into a slot formed in the front surface of a case, the optical disk is automatically loaded on a disk mounting portion. In recent years, there have been increasing demands for the slot-in type disk drive with high operability.
However, in the slot-in type disk drive, a disk transfer unit that transfers an optical disk into the case through the slot is also provided on a label surface side of the disk mounting portion. Therefore, it is difficult to arrange the ink jet head so as to be movable on the label surface in the radius direction, and it is difficult to apply the disk label printer disclosed in JP-A-11-339441 to the slot-in type disk drive.
The ink jet printer disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3341572 is integrated with the disk drive, but the structure for providing the ink jet head so as to be movable on the label surface becomes complicated, which makes it difficult to reduce the size of an apparatus.